


moustache joke

by bysine



Category: Day6 (Band), GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Alternate Universe - Chefs, Bitter Exes, Burnout - Freeform, Comedy, Heirloom Chickens, M/M, Minor Kang Younghyun | Young K / Kim Wonpil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28356054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bysine/pseuds/bysine
Summary: So: who was to say, really. Maybe they were all just fools drunk out of their minds at a tattoo shop, grasping for things they couldn’t articulate.---it's a JJP culinary AU! featuring bitter burnt-out cook exes, heirloom chickens, ramen, and several (?) jokes about JB's nascent Grand Vizier moustache.
Relationships: Im Jaebum | JB/Park Jinyoung
Comments: 19
Kudos: 84





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HELLOOOOOOOOO.
> 
> this was brought to you by forochel making a joke back in October 2019 about jb's nascent grand vizier moustache in a vlive, and me writing a random snippet about bambam's clay commune to make MORE JOKES about it, followed by, MORE THAN A YEAR LATER, me lying in bed being visited by this AU again possibly because of GOT7's recent comeback. so, as with many things in my fic-writing life, you have forochel to thank for this <3
> 
> heavily inspired by various chef's memoirs (most recently David Chang's _Eat a Peach_ ) and shows about cooking, but as usual all egregious errors about restaurant life are mine and I apologise in advance for them.

In hindsight, it made perfect sense that Jinyoung wouldn't have been the only person Bambam had texted about the underground showcase his clay commune had put together.

Of course, Jinyoung had realised this only after he'd arrived at the workshop to find Jaebeom peering at the selection of egg-white half-glazed deep ramen bowls that Bambam was selling at seventy thousand won a pop. 

None of the others had noticed, probably because Bambam was still going on at length about how he’d visited Jackson’s new set-up in Sydney and had been forced to sit through a degustation menu so long that he’d legitimately fallen asleep at one point. 

“And how are Mark and Yugyeom,” Wonpil was saying. “I heard about the farm —”

“Heirloom chickens,” Bambam replied. “Apparently Mark had an epiphany while consulting for a dental floss manufacturer and decided fuck it, he’s going to rear chickens now. The number of cock jokes I’ve had to sit through...” He shuddered. 

Jinyoung picked up a plate from behind which he could continue spying on Jaebeom. 

Before they’d left Wonpil’s apartment, Wonpil and Younghyun had had a whispered but very audible conference in Dowoon’s room about whether it was healthy that Jinyoung’s first foray into the outside world would be an excursion involving _Bambam_ of all people, given the copious amount of gossip this would entail. 

“I don’t know if it’s good for him to be hearing about everything that’s happened to every single _Le Ddongchim_ alumni in the past three years —” Wonpil had hissed. 

“He’s leaving the apartment for the first time in _three weeks_ ,” Younghyun had countered, “I’d say it’s a win —” 

Dowoon, who had been duly banished from his room in order for this conference to take place, had looked over at Jinyoung from his end of the couch. “ _Le Ddongchim_?” he had repeated, confused. 

“We called it that,” Jinyoung had paused in the middle of mechanically eating laver out of a tin to explain, “because that’s what the name sounded like, and because working at that restaurant was like a constant and unrelenting poop needle butt jab to the soul.” 

“Oh.” Dowoon had nodded uncomprehendingly. “Was that where you met Wonpil-hyung?” 

“Yes,” Jinyoung had replied, and then stuffed another piece of laver into his mouth. 

Dowoon had apparently been Wonpil’s roommate since at least three years ago, something which Wonpil insisted he’d told Jinyoung dozens of times, but which had never quite registered for Jinyoung until one afternoon two weeks ago when Jinyoung had awoken from an unexpected and rather long nap on the couch to see Dowoon standing over him, eating tuna from a can. 

“Hyung, are you ok?” Dowoon had asked. “Wonpil-hyung said I should check on you.”

“Why are you here?” Jinyoung had asked.

“I live in that room.” Dowoon had pointed at the door next to the kitchen. “Do you want tuna?” 

“No, thank you,” Jinyoung had replied, before falling back asleep. 

“Honestly, though,” Bambam was now saying to Wonpil, “why _are_ you still in that shitty job making cafe franchisees buy your evil company’s shitty over-roasted grounds?”

“Because my evil company gives me shitty discount vouchers and Younghyun-hyung subsists on shitty iced Americanos,” Wonpil replied calmly, having long become accustomed to Bambam's demeanour generally and this line of questioning specifically.

From above the irregular rim of the very handsome sea-green speckle plate Jinyoung was currently holding, he could see that Jaebeom was now on the move. 

He must have taken the week off. It was the only reason he could be here on a Friday night during the busiest part of the dinner service. 

Also he was sporting the beginnings of a mullet and signs of the nascent moustache Youngjae liked to call 'The Grand Vizier'.

He'd developed a slightly more advanced version of the moustache than the day _Kinfolk Japan_ had come to do a feature on New School Japanese-style ramen chefs based in Seoul. Jinyoung knew this because two months ago, Jackson, the only person in Jinyoung's social circle to have a subscription to fucking _Kinfolk Japan_ , had texted Jinyoung a picture of the magazine page in their Katalk group chat.

In the photograph, Jaebeom had been wearing one of those shapeless shirts with his arms folded across his chest, sporting exactly the same rakish smile that had, years ago, made Jinyoung nudge Jackson and ask exactly who that smug asshole was.  
_  
'THE FLOWERING PULSE OF DARING NEW SCHOOL RAMEN_ ,' the caption had read: incomprehensible magazine word salad at its finest.

_fuck right off_ , Jinyoung had replied, because the last thing he’d wanted to see at the end of a hellish sixteen-hour morning-prep-to-dinner-service shift had been Im Jaebeom’s moustachioed face. 

_oh fuck sorry, wrong chat_ , Jackson had texted back. 

Five seconds later, Jinyoung had received the exact same picture in a separate group chat, also from Jackson. 

_im in this chat too u dick_ , Jinyoung had typed, before stumbling fully-clothed onto the sad bed in his sad one-room apartment and falling asleep for the next five hours. 

(The reason for Jackson’s confusion could possibly be explained by the fact that there were two Katalk group chats that Yugyeom had temporarily set up to plan Bambam’s birthday surprise but never closed. He’d added Bambam to the first one by accident — a blessing in disguise since Bambam had quickly made clear that he had less than zero desire for a vintage pasta maker — before starting the second chat, ‘Bambam’s birthday, NO BAMBAM’. 

Jinyoung had exited both groups only to get added back the following year to discuss what they should do about Bambam’s birthday, which, as Yugyeom had astutely observed, occurred every year.)

Jinyoung was interrupted from the spiral of his thoughts by Bambam poking him forcefully in the arm. 

“Ow,” said Jinyoung blankly.

“That plate is very expensive,” said Bambam.

“Oh no,” said Wonpil now, finally squinting in Jaebeom’s direction. “I thought you said he wasn’t coming.” 

“Who —” Bambam began, spinning around. “Oh, _fuck_. That barbaric no-rsvping _fuck_. He didn’t tell me he was going to be here.” 

“Well, he is, now,” hissed Younghyun, who had been standing on Wonpil’s other side fondly watching Wonpil instead of getting footage for his monthly vlog. “And Jinyoung looks like shit.”

“Thanks, Jinyoung can hear you,” said Jinyoung. 

“Keep covering your hideous face with that plate,” Bambam told Jinyoung. “Maybe he won’t notice.” 

It was too late. Jaebeom had already spotted them and was making his way over.

“Jaebeom-hyung!” Bambam exclaimed, bounding towards Jaebeom in an attempt to head him off. “You should’ve said you were coming!”

“I texted you in the birthday chat—” Jaebeom mumbled.

“Which one?” Bambam demanded, with a hearty chuckle of either amusement or murder, it was hard to tell. “There are so many.”

In the meantime, Wonpil and Younghyun seized Jinyoung by the elbows and began steering him in the direction of the nearest exit. 

“Excuse me,” called the teenage part-timer at the counter who had been hitherto asleep, “you ahjusshis need to pay for that plate.” 

“Oh, uh, okay,” said Younghyun, over Wonpil’s protests that at twenty-seven he was hardly an ahjusshi. “How much is it?” 

The teenager told them. Which was when Jinyoung dropped the plate. Which was also when Jaebeom and everyone else in that fucking workshop were alerted to Jinyoung’s presence.

\---

Maybe it would be better if he started from the beginning.

The beginning of what, though, was the question. 

Because Jinyoung could start with the part where he’d defied his parents after finishing military service and enrolled in a culinary art degree at a private university; or the part where he’d dropped out a year in and somehow convinced the manager at _Le Ddongchim_ to hire him full time as a prep cook. How he’d met the others there: Jackson in the trenches with him working prep; Wonpil and Mark and Youngjae working front of house. Yugyeom, who’d come in later as a busser. How the circumstances at the time — long hours, narcissistic sociopath Head Chef, ineffectual and misguided management, general heavy drinking — had bonded them all like nothing else could. 

But whichever way he looked at it, the story really, properly started with Im Jaebeom. 

Maybe fifty percent of the reason Jinyoung had been attracted to Jaebeom in the first place had been that one family meal Jaebeom had made, which had been so fucking delicious that it had filled Jinyoung with an incredible, envious rage that had never properly subsided. Years later, he could still remember it: the fish head stock that was so clean and sweet, with just the right hit of acidity, dumpling skins with the perfect balance of tenderness and bounce; the burst of flavours in each dumpling like a fucking revelation. 

The Head Chef had liked it so much he’d put it in as a lunch special, and when the menus had been printed Jinyoung had rolled his eyes at the word “tortellini” without realising he’d read it out loud and scornfully. 

Jaebeom had caught his eye and given him a conspiratorial smirk across the bench.

(Jackson of all people had been the one to warn him: “Jaebeom always, always has a thing with the pretty new guy.”

“Okay,” Jinyoung had said, wondering if Jackson had been speaking from experience, making the mental note to be _careful_ even though he suspected he was a little too far gone already. 

Because there had still been a little bit of that wide-eyed kid from Jinhae in Jinyoung, who had looked at Jaebeom and been struck by how effortlessly he had belonged in the kitchen; how he had moved; the flex of his forearms whenever he descended on them during prep to tell them specifically how they were fucking things up that morning and to show them how to fuck it up a little bit less.)

“It was a fucking wonton,” Jinyoung had said later, when they’d gone out for staff drinks and Jaebeom had cornered him by the bar — had shouted it again, because Bambam had mysteriously turned up and convinced the bartender to play something terrible and loud and danceable. “I didn’t mean any offense!”

Jaebeom had laughed; glanced over at the bartender and made a gesture for another drink. Leaned in towards Jinyoung and murmured in his ear: “It _was_ a fucking wonton.” 

Jinyoung had shivered, both from the proximity and from the rush of having Jaebeom’s attention turned entirely onto him, and they’d danced a bit, and drunk some more. 

And later Jaebeom had taken Jinyoung back to his shitty apartment and made Jinyoung pasta ( _aglio olio_!!!! Jinyoung would reflect, years later, _what a fucking cliche_!!!) and asked Jinyoung just enough questions about his thoughts on food or whatever to make Jinyoung kid himself into thinking that maybe, just maybe, Jackson had been wrong. 

Or perhaps the story really started here — with Jaebeom fucking off to Tokyo a year later without any warning; Jinyoung coming in to work one morning and hearing it from _Yugyeom_ of all people, even though Jinyoung had just been over at Jaebeom’s two nights ago, tangled up in bed with him while Jaebeom had gone on at length about how ramen was like the universe in a bowl, that pretentious fuck. 

So that had been that; not even so much as a goodbye or a fuck you. And Jinyoung had decided, after a week of licking his wounds at Wonpil’s, that he was never going to let himself be that vulnerable again. 

But however Jinyoung chose to start the story, it always ended like this: 

With Jinyoung working so fucking hard over the next three years in order to climb the buttery ladder of French kitchens. With Jinyoung landing a position at a two Michelin-starred restaurant at the literal top of the tallest building in Seoul.

With Jinyoung, six months into his new fancy job at that new fancy restaurant, burning out so spectacularly that he’d just walked out of the kitchen before the end of service one night, leaving three pans of beautiful scallops smoking in their butter. 

\---

On the bright side, the uneven halves of the two hundred thousand won ceramic plate looked very handsome up on Wonpil’s television sideboard. 

“Shouldn’t we have asked if they had any superglue or something?” asked Wonpil, standing over the plate with arms akimbo. 

“We could find someone who does that patching things together with gold thing,” suggested Younghyun, whose collection of pretentious but aesthetically-pleasing books probably contained at least one that was about the philosophy of _kintsugi_ and that was probably also two hundred pages too long. 

Jinyoung only watched Younghyun and Youngjae’s normcore cafe-soundtracked food and lifestyle YouTube videos because Wonpil regularly disseminated the link to every new upload on at least seven different Katalk groupchats Jinyoung happened to be in, and because sometimes the only thing that Jinyoung could fall asleep to was apparently the sound of Kang Younghyun slicing garlic at a truly glacial pace for his bastardised spaghetti alle vongole. 

Also, the one time Jinyoung had expressed vague surprise that the channel had close to a million subscribers, Wonpil had pouted for days. 

“They’ll catch up to haegreendal any day now, I just know it,” Wonpil had said, when Jinyoung had video called him after work to apologise. 

“What the fuck is haegreendal?” Jinyoung had asked.

“— ’s fucking two in the morning,” Younghyun had groaned, rolling into the frame to squint judgmentally at Wonpil’s phone screen in the darkness. 

“Ugh, get a room,” Jinyoung had said, shielding his eyes from Younghyun’s blurry toplessness.

“We’re _in it_ , you monster,” Younghyun had replied, and hung up before Wonpil could say goodbye. 

“I like how the plate looks now,” Jinyoung said now, having resumed his position within the blanket nest of the couch. 

The sound it had made when it had fallen on the floor of the workshop had been oddly muted in Jinyoung’s memory, even though he knew from everyone else’s reactions that it must have been loud enough to have drawn so much attention. All he remembered was that he’d been holding it one moment, and then looking down at it the next, where it had landed on the floor and split apart. It had seemed anticlimactic to Jinyoung, almost farcical the way everyone had whirled around, how Younghyun had asked him if he was _hurt_. 

“How much did you say it was again?” Wonpil had asked, but whatever amount it was hadn’t really registered for Jinyoung. He’d just looked down at the broken dish and thought, abstractly, about how it would be impossible to plate anything on it. 

And then Jaebeom had been there, his face breaking into that ridiculous, almost goofy smile he saved for friends, like in that one Instagram video where he’d visited Mark and Yugyeom’s chicken farm in Jeolla province. 

Jinyoung liked to think he'd gotten custody of all their mutual friends after the breakup, since (a) Jaebeom had been the one who’d fucked off to Japan and (b) everyone had agreed that Jaebeom had been a bit of a dick, both generally, and also specifically to Jinyoung. 

It was only after Jinyoung had taken up residence on Wonpil’s couch that he’d had the time to stalk Instagram accounts from his blanket nest and realise that everyone had made separate trips to Jaebeom's new hole-in-a-wall ramen restaurant at one point or another after it had opened. 

He'd expected it of the others, but Wonpil?

In any case, Jaebeom had come over to them at the workshop and directed that goofy friendship smile at _Jinyoung_ , as if Jinyoung were an heirloom chicken being cradled in Kim Yugyeom’s arms which Jaebeom wanted (in the video) to make friends with and probably (in reality) was thinking of cooking. 

“Park Jinyoung,” he’d said. “How long has it been?” 

“Four years,” Jinyoung had replied automatically, instead of the ‘fuck you’ he’d intended. 

“That’s crazy, wow,” Jaebeom had said. 

“Long time no see!” Wonpil had yelped, even though Jinyoung knew from the footage of Wonpil's elbow in one of Younghyun’s indulgent monthly vlogs that they’d most definitely met last month. 

In the background somewhere, the teenager had been busy calling her manager or whatever about the broken plate. 

“Why isn’t your restaurant open today?” Jinyoung had asked, without any preamble.

“A water pipe burst,” Jaebeom had replied. “They’ve cut off the supply until they can fix it.” 

“Sure,” Jinyoung had said, unconvinced, because Im Jaebeom wouldn’t have been here looking at stupid expensive handmade ceramic pieces if his premises had only recently been flooded. 

“Also my two employees left because I couldn’t pay them,” Jaebeom had added, with a little shrug. 

“Jimin and Yerin quit?” Younghyun had asked, only to be elbowed by Wonpil in a vain attempt to keep pretending like they’d never set foot in Jaebeom’s restaurant. 

“Is no one eating New School Tokyo Style Ramen in Seoul, then,” Jinyoung had said, still staring directly at Jaebeom, because three weeks of hermitage and general dysfunction had, curiously, made him nothing-to-lose brave. 

Jaebeom, to his credit, hadn’t looked away. “I guess not,” he’d replied, and laughed that same hypnotic no- _you’re_ -the-centre-of-the-universe laugh that had gotten Jinyoung into trouble way back when. 

“Okay,” Jinyoung had said, not laughing along. 

“Come by when my water’s back and try some,” Jaebeom had said, after a pause. And he’d pulled out a pen from his pocket, scribbled his telephone number on the clay commune pamphlet — right across the black and white photograph of Bambam’s face — and handed it to Jinyoung. 

“I assume your number’s still the same,” Jaebeom had added, when Jinyoung had dropped the pamphlet on the floor next to the plate, not in a deliberate, pointed manner but simply out of surprise and a general lack of motor skills. 

“ _Someone_ ,” the teenager had emerged from her phone call to say, “is going to have to pay for that.” 

“Dammit,” Bambam had muttered, “Lisa’s gonna be so smug, I told her that that fucking plate was never going to sell at that fucktastic price.” 

“If Jinyoungie says he likes how the plate looks now, then I’m okay,” said Wonpil now, while trying to arrange the two halves of said fucktastically-priced plate on top of a stack of old _Kinfolk Japan_ back copies. 

“Can it really be considered a plate at this point,” Younghyun wondered aloud.

“If you broke your nose it’d still be a nose,” snapped Jinyoung, feeling unduly, fuzzily annoyed at Younghyun’s practicality. 

“Well,” said Wonpil, in a tired attempt to mediate, “plate or not, Jinyoungie paid for it. So I guess he can do what he wants.”

“Pilie,” Younghyun began, but he also let himself be gently steered from the living room and into Wonpil’s bedroom. 

There were a few moments of muffled whispering (mostly Wonpil very sternly asking Younghyun to be _kind_ — honestly, the soundproofing for their room was worse than Dowoon’s), before the door opened again. 

“Are you okay, Jinyoungie?” asked Wonpil, slipping out. 

“I’m sorry!” called Younghyun, before crashing off to the bathroom. 

“I’m fine,” said Jinyoung, attempting the comforting smile he always gave to Dowoon in the mornings when Dowoon was eating breakfast and Jinyoung had been awoken by his current nemesis, a stray beam of sunlight that got in through a gap in the blinds. 

Judging from Wonpil’s frown, Jinyoung’s smile may not have been as effective as Dowoon had led him to believe. 

“I mean, I may be having a career-related mental breakdown,” said Jinyoung, “but I’m otherwise okay. Nothing to worry about on the dirtbag ex front.” 

“Okay,” said Wonpil, still looking doubtful.

“Also you can stop pretending you didn’t go visit his restaurant with Younghyun-hyung last month,” Jinyoung added. “I’m on social media now. I have a lot of time on my hands and there’s videographic evidence.” 

Wonpil gave him a guilty look. “It wasn’t really even that nice.”

"You lying liar,” replied Jinyoung, without any venom. 

“Nyoungie —”

"I _know_ it was good," continued Jinyoung, "because I know Im Jaebeom makes good fucking food, and I hate it.”

Wonpil’s visible relief at Jinyoung expressing a feeling in general — and a food opinion at that — was probably a testament to how palpably numb and out of it Jinyoung had been in the past weeks. 

“ _Kintsugi_!” said Younghyun just then, bursting out into the living room in nothing but a towel. “I remember what it’s called now.” 

“I _knew that_ ,” Jinyoung snapped, risking the integrity of his blanket nest in order to fling one of its constituent hoodies (an old one of Wonpil’s) at Younghyun. “And nobody wants to see your dripping chest!”

“I do,” said Wonpil in a small voice, before hustling Younghyun back into the bathroom. 

\---

“Hyung,” said someone, making Jinyoung jump so much that he’d most definitely have broken another two hundred thousand won plate if he’d been holding one. 

Jinyoung turned around to see Dowoon standing behind him in the apartment entryway.

“I live in that room,” said Dowoon reflexively, as if Jinyoung might forget. “Also hyung you’ve been standing in front of the door in your coat but no shoes for ten minutes.” 

Had it been ten minutes, Jinyoung wondered. 

“I was just thinking,” he told Dowoon. 

“About whether to bring an umbrella?” asked Dowoon. “Because you probably should, the weather forecast says it might rain.” 

“Actually, I was having a nice quiet spiral about whether to visit my dirtbag ex’s obnoxious ramen restaurant,” said Jinyoung, “but thanks for the tip.”

“No problem, hyung,” Dowoon replied, handing Jinyoung one of the half a dozen corporate umbrellas that seemed to respawn in the corner of the apartment next to Dowoon’s door. (The umbrellas were ghastly WoW-themed ones from Dowoon’s work in some kind of management company for professional gamers. Neither Wonpil or Younghyun had been enthused about the artwork, but still kept borrowing them because they possessed a surprisingly good opening mechanism.) 

Jinyoung took the umbrella, wondering if this was meant to be some sort of cosmic sign — more cosmic, perhaps, than the literal text message from Im Jaebeom which had read: ‘ _water’s back, come any time_ ’ followed by a goofy cat sticker. 

The cat thing had been the other reason why Jinyoung had been lulled into a sense of delusional idiocy, back in the day. Because the orgasmic wontons and the drunk post- _aglio olio_ fooling around had been one thing (aglio!!! fucking!!! olio!!!), but Jaebeom the cat whisperer had been something else. 

The way he’d get all caught up communing with his neighbours’ cats on his way up to his flat; how tender he looked with the otherwise wrathful tabby that prowled the alleyway behind the restaurant, the one Yugyeom swore he’d once seen biting a crow mid-flight out of the air and which refused any scraps apart from the best parts of each night’s leftovers. Jaebeom had played the long game, tempting it over to his side with bits of cooked tuna and fresh ham, and the odd bit of cheese. 

“Are you sure the cheese won’t kill it,” Jinyoung had asked, standing at an awkward distance so as not to disrupt this other, somehow familiar, food-based seduction. 

“Some cats are lactose intolerant,” Jaebeom had replied, “but this one isn’t.”

It had been that aspect of Jaebeom that had made him seem both softer and wilder, and all the more mysterious to a young Jinyoung. 

Young Jinyoung had been a fucking idiot, honestly, because Im Jaebeom had also been a man who’d had a pair of chopsticks tattooed on the inside of one forearm and a spoon on the other, as if he had expected to one day wake up with no memories and have to deduce from his tattoos, _Memento_ -style, that he liked eating food. 

“Couldn’t you have gotten, I don’t know, a chef’s knife or something?” Jinyoung had once asked Jaebeom — he couldn’t remember exactly when, but it might have been the time Jinyoung had caught a dreadful cold, because he distinctly remembered how Jaebeom had been squashed up in Jinyoung’s tiny cluttered one-room apartment’s excuse for a kitchen, heating up some porridge on the stove. 

“Well, I’d be the one holding the chef’s knife,” Jaebeom had said, ladling out the porridge into a bowl. “These are to remind me of the people who’ll be nourished by the food that I make.” 

Jinyoung’s nose had been so stuffed up that he hadn’t been able to taste very much at all, but he still remembered how he’d been surprised to find bits of abalone cut up inside, in addition to strips of hand-torn chicken meat. 

(“You mean he was so fucking drunk he forgot how to say ‘knife’ in Korean,” Jackson had told Jinyoung later, in the early weeks after Jaebeom’s Great Ramen Escape. “I was there, I should know.”)

They’d made a big fuss about the spoon and chopstick tattoos in the _Kinfolk Japan_ article, with artful black and white closeups of Jaebeom’s distracting forearms in action as he forcefully flicked a serving of ramen in a noodle drainer, or plated his premium dry-aged Jeonju domestic pork chashu.

Jinyoung had properly read the article in the days following his own Great Escape (albeit to the much nearer domain of Wonpil’s couch, generously offered), and had discovered in himself a surprising new strain of that familiar old jealousy, this time at Jaebeom’s seeming ease of pursuing whatever the fuck he wanted. 

Jaebeom had walked out of the kitchen of _Le Ddongchim_ because he’d found something else to pursue passionately. Jinyoung had walked out because — well. Because he’d come to realise, with terrifying and crushing suddenness, that he hadn’t a fucking clue what he wanted. 

Maybe Jaebeom in all his pretentious fuckery had been right. Maybe if Jinyoung had focused less on how well he wielded his chef’s knife and more on the person holding the proverbial spoon and chopsticks, he wouldn’t have found himself in this situation in the first place. 

But also, maybe if Jackson hadn’t also been absolutely plastered that same night, he wouldn’t have persuaded the tattoo artist to ink onto his shoulder the name of a woman he’d swiped right on Tinder for. And he wouldn’t, later, have had to amend the ‘I’ in ‘Sidney’ to ‘Y’ while inventing, ex post facto, a whole story about how his life’s dream was to go to Australia. 

So: who was to say, really. Maybe they were all just fools drunk out of their minds at a tattoo shop, grasping for things they couldn’t articulate. 

\---

With all his ruminating at the apartment, it was nearing the end of service by the time Jinyoung arrived at the door of Jaebeom’s restaurant. The name _RAMEN NORA_ had been inked onto the foggy glass in white, with a stylised illustration of a siamese cat stalking a chicken below it. 

On his way over, Jinyoung had been prepared to have to wait for a seat if the place was full. Now that he was here, though, he realised he needn’t have worried. 

The restaurant was empty save for a pair of university-aged kids — more interested in using the free wifi than their forgotten bowls of ramen — and Jaebeom, who was perched on a stool behind the counter, looking dolefully at his phone. 

He glanced up when Jinyoung came in, face breaking into a grin of such surprise and pleasure that Jinyoung felt something weird and inconvenient twist in his chest. 

“You came,” said Jaebeom, springing up from his watchtower of sadness.

“Not like I had anywhere else to be,” Jinyoung replied. He thought about asking if the conspicuous lack of any crowd whatsoever was because Jaebeom was sold out, but decided he didn’t have the energy to make it not sound like a snide comment. 

He also, he realised, did not have the energy or motivation to make a properly snide comment, having expended what little reserves he had in making the trek over. So he just stood and said nothing. _  
_  
For a moment of profoundly awkward silence they looked at each other; Jaebeom uncertain in his terrible bandana and Grand Vizier moustache, and Jinyoung probably looking his own kind of frightful in his days-old stubble, a beanie that was definitely not his jammed over his frankly terrible hair. 

“Let’s get you some ramen, then,” said Jaebeom, after a pause. “The special?” 

“Whatever,” said Jinyoung, and sat down on an impractically uncomfortable barstool in front of the counter. 

They’d talked about this before, Jinyoung realised, as he glanced down at the box of condiments in front of him and saw the little writeup card about how to add tororo-konbu to one’s soup. What Jaebeom would do if he had a restaurant of his very own — the food he'd cook; how it would be served.

“I’m not going to have someone patter on at a customer about how they should enjoy their fucking food,” Jaebeom had said, over beautiful summer rolls at the Vietnamese place just across from his building. 

“So you're just going to put everything onto little cards, then,” Jinyoung had said, half in jest, while visually examining the cross section of his own piece to discern how exactly they’d managed to pack so much flavour and textural contrast into one compact roll.

“Fuck it, why not,” Jaebeom had said, before falling silent because he had been busy stuffing his mouth with food. It was a miracle he’d even tasted anything, eating like that, and yet he’d seemed to have had one of the most sensitive palates Jinyoung had ever encountered. 

Because when you cut through the bullshit and the fancy techniques and the showmanship, that was really what mattered — that instinct for tasting what exactly made something good fucking food. How to nudge right up against the boundaries of too-salty or too-umami and throw in just the right acid kick or underlying sweetness to make everything that much more intense. And while Jinyoung had always struggled with that balance; had always worked hard to hone that instinct, it had come as naturally to Jaebeom as breathing. 

So regardless of Jinyoung’s general lack of feelings as of late — arguably, he hadn’t felt much even in the months prior to this scallop-abandoning kitchen walkout, apart from a general sense of dread and high-strung fury — and his specific and abiding resentment towards Jaebeom, there was a part of him that was still very much anticipating eating a bowl of Jaebeom’s ramen. 

Jinyoung’s first impression when Jaebeom set down the bowl in front of him was that it seemed aggressively normal. It was, for all intents and purposes, a classic-looking presentation of shoyu ramen: noodles of medium thickness in a clear, amber broth, with the usual toppings — bamboo shoots, seaweed, thinly sliced green onions. A whole seasoned egg. Slices of Jaebeom’s dry-aged Jeonju domestic pork chashu because apparently Jeju black pork was now too mainstream. 

Even as Jinyoung picked up his chopsticks he could feel Jaebeom watching him from where he’d installed himself back onto his stool. 

Clearly the point was to cut out all the flashy bullshit, Jinyoung thought. He tried a bit of the soup. Then some of the noodles. Then the chashu. Then the bamboo shoots with a bit of the noodles, and then the egg. He dumped a prudent portion of tororo-konbu into the soup and tried it again. 

It was… okay. 

It tasted exactly like it looked — like a well-balanced bowl of ramen. From anyone else, Jinyoung would have enjoyed it for what it was and called it a day. 

From Jaebeom, however, it was baffling. It felt nothing like what Jinyoung remembered — where Jaebeom had previously been surefooted and almost reckless, this felt technically perfect and yet somehow staid. Like Jaebeom had finally been given a blank canvas of his own and had chosen to fill it with a painstaking copy of an old master. It boggled the mind. 

“How is it?” Jaebeom asked, sounding almost as if he was dreading the answer. 

Whatever disappointment Jinyoung was feeling must have shown in his expression, judging by how Jaebeom’s own face fell. 

“Hyung,” said Jinyoung, before he could stop himself. “What happened to you?” 

Jaebeom opened his mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by the sound of the restaurant door jingling open. 

\---

In the pamphlet about _Coping with Career Transitions_ that someone (probably Younghyun) had left unsubtly on top of Jinyoung’s blanket cave, an entire page had been devoted to describing a little bear going through the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief about leaving his job. 

Which had been ridiculous, because bears did not participate in the perverse capitalist construct of _jobs_ , and also Jinyoung was very much not in “depression” about his career-related mental breakdown, thank you very much. (The fact that he’d been living on Wonpil’s couch for the past three weeks was simply an indicator of his close friendship with Wonpil, and his new-found passion for naps.) 

Now, however, as he nursed his beer, staring down at his half-finished bowl of ramen while around him, the restaurant bustled with a sudden post-service burst of customers — all cooks from a neighbouring restaurant, apparently — Jinyoung was beginning to appreciate the applicability of the little bear infographic. 

He’d worked his way through Denial while the new group had settled in, calling their hellos to Jaebeom and giving him their orders. Surely he had been mistaken, he kept telling himself. Surely Im Jaebeom of all people couldn’t have produced this bowl of ramen. Except that every time he went back for another bite, he tasted the same baffling, boring restraint. 

Then one of the young cooks — a vaguely familiar-looking kid who kept sneaking glances over at Jinyoung — had asked Jaebeom about the heirloom chickens he was using to make the chintan broth, and Jinyoung had found himself, just like Little Bear, lurching straight into Anger. 

Because who the fuck was Im Jaebeom to be taking twenty-week-old heirloom chickens and Wando kelp and whatever the fuck else exquisite produce he’d managed to get his hands on, to produce _this_? To what end? 

It made no sense, which only served to enrage Jinyoung further.

"I would like another beer," said Jinyoung, because he needed something to wash down the disappointment.

"Sure," said Jaebeom, from where he was plating up the first of many bowls. "Just give me a minute — or you can come round behind the counter and grab one from the fridge."

Mindful of the hungry death stares he was getting from his ravenous neighbours, Jinyoung got up and slipped in behind the counter to help himself to another bottle of beer from the display refrigerator. 

But as he stood in the narrow space that passed as Jaebeom’s kitchen, looking at the broths simmering at various stages in their tall pots, Jinyoung felt his Anger give way to Depression (bypassing Bargaining altogether). Because what was the point, he thought, as he opened his second bottle of beer and began to down it. 

If even Jaebeom had succumbed to the profound meaninglessness of it all, then what hope did Jinyoung have? 

Jinyoung, who had worked almost four years straight without a day off until one night, in the middle of the worst fucking service of his life, he’d paused in the middle of balancing three strips of seaweed on a sauteed scallop nested in a bed of rice foam to note the terrible ringing in his ears. Jinyoung, who’d been overcome, then, by a curious feeling of blankness as he’d looked down at the misshapen little tower. How the scallop had been a tiny, slightly irregular disk against the vast landscape that was the normal-sized plate. How the rice foam, which had taken a total of seventeen hours to prep only to be pureed and shot out of a canister, looked a little like a baby's dribble. 

All of a sudden, everything about what Jinyoung had been doing in that kitchen had taken on an air of the ludicrous, from the Gangwon radish they had sliced then marinated then reassembled to form a multilayered, larger radish, to how every day multiple people laboured to prep servings of pig's feet only to mince it all up and stuff it into a tiny, fluffy pastry which then formed part of a two hundred and forty thousand won dining experience. 

_It's_ _jokbal_ , Jinyoung wanted to say; to run out into the dining area brandishing a fistful of the tiny pastries. _It's fucking jokbal that’s been chopped into oblivion!!!_

“Watch the scallops,” one of the other cooks — Maxim R, perhaps — had said.

“ _Fuck the scallops_ ,” Jinyoung had replied with feeling, and then had been promptly horrified by the tears that suddenly stung his eyes. 

He hadn’t remembered much of what had happened after that, only that he’d somehow managed to find his way out of the kitchen and down the tallest building in Seoul, where he’d sat in the lobby, still in his kitchen uniform, until Wonpil had come to pick him up (courtesy of a very baffled Younghyun, who was the only one of them who owned a car). 

He was jerked out of that particularly awful memory by someone calling “Sunbaenim!” repeatedly and with great enthusiasm. 

Jinyoung blinked, and found himself back in the restaurant that was very much not the one in which Jinyoung had experienced his very terrifying and humiliating breakdown. 

He looked over the counter and saw that the person calling him was the young cook who’d been glancing at him earlier.

“Sunbaenim!” the kid repeated. “It’s really you!”

And _now_ Jinyoung recognised him — not by his face, but by his particular tone of unwavering enthusiasm. 

“It’s me!” said the kid. “Hwang Hyunjin! Do you remember me?”

Specifically, Jinyoung remembered being in the kitchen of _Le Ddongchim_ , quietly gritting his teeth at the sound of Hwang Hyunjin happily parroting instructions like it was his first day of school, every fucking day, for two fucking years straight, until Maxim B had put them out of their misery by poaching the kid for his new concept restaurant. 

“Yes,” said Jinyoung grimly, finishing the rest of his beer and reaching for another because he was not ready for this.

“I’m still at Chef Maxim’s restaurant!” Hyunjin continued valiantly. “Poached! It’s down the street from here.”

“Is that so,” Jinyoung gritted out, before taking another long swig. 

“These guys have been supporting Ramen Nora since we opened,” said Jaebeom, as he served another two bowls of ramen.

“I love ramen,” added Hyunjin earnestly.

And maybe it was a combination of the beer and the sensory flashback that Hyunjin’s voice triggered, because Jinyoung found himself careening straight back into Anger all over again. 

“You love. Ramen.” 

“Yeah,” chirped Hyunjin. “I like that the heirloom chicken introduces an aspect of gameyness to the broth,” he added.

“Gameyness,” Jinyoung repeated. 

“Yes,” said Hyunjin. He paused, and frowned. “Are you okay, sunbaenim? You’ve turned quite red.”

“Am I okay?” asked Jinyoung, taking a step forward and realising that yes, he was feeling considerably lightheaded. 

“Yeah,” said Hyunjin, sounding a little perplexed now. “Are you… crying, sunbaenim?” 

With the hand that wasn’t holding his third — fourth? — bottle of beer, Jinyoung touched his cheek. His fingers came away wet. 

The restaurant, previously filled with the chatter of the Poached kitchen staff, had now fallen silent.

“The fucking heirloom chickens died for nothing,” Jinyoung whispered, looking at the tears on his fingers.

“Uh, Jinyoung,” Jaebeom began, alarmed. 

“We don’t deserve those chickens,” Jinyoung continued, his voice choking with dawning realisation, because those fucking birds had lived their happy lives under the tender care of beautiful Mark and hapless Yugyeom, eating organic feed Mark had bought with his dental floss management consultancy money, free range foraging in a scenic farmstead, only to end up as part of the world’s saddest bowl of ramen. 

“I didn’t know you thought my ramen was _sad_ ,” Jaebeom said quietly, which strongly suggested that Jinyoung had maybe said all of that out loud. “Look, you’re very drunk —” 

“ _Those chickens lived like royalty_ ,” Jinyoung hissed, poking a tear-damp finger into Jaebeom’s chest. “They deserve the funeral of _kings_!”

\---

He woke up the next morning to: (a) a blinding headache; and (b) Dowoon and Wonpil eating chicken porridge at the coffee table in judgmental silence. 

To be precise, the judgment was mainly emanating from Wonpil. Dowoon, on the other hand, was making the happy humming noises he always made when he was eating nice food, the definition of which extended from the rather exquisite soy sauce crab Younghyun had once brought back from a shoot, to convenience store sausage. 

“Oh, Jinyoung is awake,” said Younghyun, who was bringing over to the coffee table something he’d just heated up in the cream-coloured pan with removable handle that always featured heavily in Younghyun’s ‘ _The Sweet Life: Breakfast_ ’ videos. 

“Jinyoung is close to death,” said Jinyoung, shutting his eyes again in faint hope that it would lessen the agony of his headache. 

The balm of darkness was no use, however, against Wonpil poking Jinyoung repeatedly in the knee. 

“Death can wait,” said Wonpil sternly. “Get up. Eat some porridge.” 

“Leave me alone,” Jinyoung croaked. He paused. Whatever it was Younghyun had fried up smelled _delicious_. “What did you make.”

“What did _you_ make,” Wonpil muttered darkly, probably glaring Dowoon and Younghyun into not answering Jinyoung’s question. 

“Ugh,” said Jinyoung, sliding his blanketed self off the couch and landing half on top of Wonpil. 

While Wonpil yelped and squirmed away, Jinyoung squinted at the spread set out on the coffee table. 

This was _not_ Younghyun’s aesthetic. Notwithstanding that Younghyun had plated everything nicely, YouTube video style (in what was probably an occupational hazard by now), the dishes themselves were decidedly not what Younghyun would have made for any video. There was a dish of chicken bones and feet, fried with what looked like smashed ginger and garlic, liberally seasoned and topped with chopped green onions. Each of them had a bowl of chicken porridge that looked chock full of simmered vegetables and hand-shredded dark meat. In Dowoon’s bowl was the half-submerged but still crunchy-looking fragment of chicken skin. 

“What the fuck is all this,” breathed Jinyoung.

“Do you seriously not remember,” said Wonpil, sounding flatly unamused.

“What Wonpil means to say,” Younghyun translated, genial in the face of Wonpil’s rare anger, “is that you maybe had one too many —”

“You got blackout drunk, took over Jaebeom-hyung’s kitchen, and cooked two of his heirloom chickens without asking,” snapped Wonpil. “He called us, because apparently you were crying into the chicken porridge and he didn’t know what to do.” 

“Oh fuck,” whispered Jinyoung, looking over at the chicken feet and experiencing a weird feeling of deja vu, like he had, in fact, tipped a similar serving of it onto a plate while yelling about _tiny food on a giant plate_ and _I just want to … ugh … cook delicious shit people can get shitfaced to, you know what I mean_ , and —

“Did Hwang Hyunjin come in at some point with groceries?” asked Jinyoung faintly, recalling the disjointed flash of him rifling through a shopping bag for gochujang while someone — possibly Wonpil, now that he was thinking about it — kept telling him that he was very, very drunk. 

“Yes,” said Wonpil, “also you ranted at length while dangerously cutting up chicken wings, yakitori-style, about Maxim 'mouth breathing over the soup while asking for Kim Wonpil’s number’, which I _do not appreciate_ —”

“Which Maxim was it, by the way?” Younghyun asked Jinyoung, “Maxim B or Maxim R?”

“That’s not the point!” Wonpil exclaimed. “I left the moment I realised the ‘wine and cheese tasting’ was a date!” 

"Which point was that?" asked Younghyun. "When you'd wine-tasted the entire bottle of wine?"

“Hyung,” said Dowoon to Jinyoung in a desperate attempt to defuse the situation. “What’s that?”

Jinyoung looked over to what Dowoon had pointed at. Sitting on its cork coaster was the cream-coloured pan, in which Younghyun had apparently fried up what looked like chicken combs. 

“That’s apparently what happens," bit out Wonpil, "when Park Jinyoung decides he’s going to cook the heirloom chickens comb to foot because they are, I quote, ‘princes amongst hens’."

“I thought they were all hens,” said Younghyun, still sounding slightly disgruntled at the lack of resolution vis-à-vis the Maxim-related misunderstanding that Jinyoung might have inadvertently caused, because he couldn't really remember whether he'd given Maxim a real or fake number.

While Jinyoung had, with the other dishes, registered some distant recollection of making them (or, in the case of the chicken porridge, quite literally weeping into it), the combs carried with them no such impression. They sat there, immaculately peeled and glistening in a deep brown glaze, like polite guests to the chaotic dinner party that was Jinyoung's other drunken dishes. 

"Who prepped the combs?" Jinyoung asked quietly. Before anyone could answer, he picked one up with his fingers and popped it into his mouth. Tasted the deep umami flavour and mild sweetness on his tongue, savoured the tender crunch of it between his teeth.  
_  
Fuck_ it was delicious.

“Jaebeom-hyung did it,” said Wonpil. “Don’t you remember? While you flambéed chicken gizzards and went on — _at length, in Jaebeom-hyung’s own kitchen_ — about his ‘soulless ramen’.” 

“Oh, fuck,” said Jinyoung, feeling a surge of profound embarrassment as he began to recall the full extent of his evening. “Fucking. Fuck. Was Jaebeom-hyung… upset?”

“Wouldn’t you be?” Wonpil exploded. 

Younghyun and Dowoon, on the other hand, continued silently guzzling the very excellent combs. 

“Fuck,” said Jinyoung again for good measure, burying his face in his hands. “I’m a fucking monster and I hate myself.” 

“You’re not and you shouldn’t,” said Wonpil firmly, “but you weren’t very nice when you were drunk last night.” 

That was the thing, wasn’t it — Jinyoung was never exactly _nice_ , even when sober. But he prided himself in being honest and loyal (phone number disclosures notwithstanding) once someone had earned it, like Wonpil, who’d probably earned it a hundred times over in their years of friendship.

He’d thought Jaebeom had earned it, once upon a time, because despite his unreliable spates of blowing hot and cold, he’d still, in the dark early months of Jinyoung being steadily browbeaten by their narcissistic sociopath head chef, silently helped Jinyoung prep a dozen components of the nightmare tuna carpaccio dish without saying a word. Had not said a word to Jinyoung while doing this — probably for the best since Jinyoung would have either yelled at him or burst into tears — but _had_ told someone to fuck right off when they’d tried to make a snide remark about Jinyoung not pulling his weight during a family meal.

And then Jaebeom had fucked off — also without a word, leaving Jinyoung to reimagine those cold mornings hunkered in the kitchen for what they must have been: condescension, probably, and pity at Jinyoung’s incapability at mastering that dish. 

To know that Jaebeom had done the same thing again last night, even while Jinyoung had apparently been drunkenly haranguing him about his ramen in front of younger chefs — 

He didn’t know what to make of it. It was horrifying to even think about: the fact that he’d gone on a drunken culinary fugue; that he’d apparently cried several times during said drunken culinary fugue. That Jaebeom had once again observed Jinyoung pushed past the brink of something, and had gotten out his knife and condescended to help him. 

“Nyoungie —” Wonpil said, sounding more worried than mad now. He reached over to squeeze Jinyoung’s arm.

“If it’s of any consolation,” said Younghyun, “these chicken feet are excellent.” 

“Mmpfh,” agreed Dowoon, gnawing on some heirloom chicken neck. 

“Good,” Jinyoung replied bitterly, “because I’m never fucking doing that again.” 

“I think you’ve done quite a lot of cooking for one night,” Wonpil said, the same time that Jinyoung’s phone chimed from within the depths of his blanket cocoon. 

Jinyoung extracted his phone. It was a message from Jaebeom.

_I know this is a bit of an ask_ , Jaebeom had texted, _but would you want to help out at dinner service again?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have ~~it all under control~~ outlined the rest of this story so there will be more to come! 
> 
> HUGE massivo thanks to forochel as always for reading all my moustache snippets as well as enthusiastically encouraging this!!!! you are the spoon to my chopstick tattoo, the 'y' in my sydney, &c &c. I wouldn't be writing JJP or youngfeel (spot the suprise youngfeel) without you <3333333
> 
> also thank you to all the kind people who read and said lovely things about my other JJP fic during my long absence from got7 writing, your comments have had a (very tangible, more than 7k-words!!) effect and are greatly treasured. also, feel free to find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bysine2) although be warned i mostly reblog pictures of yoon dowoon's face. 
> 
> <33


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check under your seats for more chickens in this new chapter
> 
> also this goes without saying but I shall say anyway that jinyoung is in a pretty bad place in this fic and therefore his behaviour is ... rather not great

Negotiations for Jinyoung’s potential return to the kitchen of Ramen Nora took place in the neutral ground that was Younghyun and Youngjae’s food styling studio, because Jinyoung apparently could not be trusted to go to the restaurant alone, and Wonpil had to leave for another soul-sucking day of patiently haranguing franchisees about their coffee sales or whatever it was he did. 

“I have a job too, you know,” Younghyun had said, while Dowoon had vanished out the door to go pick up apparently the number two PUBG team in South Korea (Jinyoung wasn’t sure; Dowoon mumbled a lot). 

“You’re your own boss,” Wonpil had replied, “and you have a very calming space.”

And so it was that Younghyun came to preside over the meeting of Jaebeom and Jinyoung, in the yellow and cream-coloured, tastefully decorated studio space that was inexplicably filled with succulents. 

“We’re having a collab with that succulent rental place,” Youngjae said by way of non-explanation, before returning to using his years of wedding videography experience to shoot an extreme close-up of a fried egg. 

“Your egg yolk is off-centre,” Jinyoung pointed out.

“That’s the aesthetic you perfectionist fuck,” Youngjae replied smoothly. 

Jaebeom, on the other hand, was seated cross-legged atop a wicker basket stool, beneath the indoor palm plant Jinyoung recognised from Youngjae’s neverending OOTD photoshoots. His Grand Vizier was even more pronounced in the morning sunlight, and he was wearing an old white t-shirt with a cat on it that Jinyoung definitely remembered buying with him. 

Appealing to nostalgia? That fool. 

On closer inspection, he appeared to be napping.

“Jaebeom-ah—” Younghyun began, but was interrupted by the sound of Jinyoung pointedly dragging a metal stool along the slate grey concrete floor. 

Jaebeom jerked awake. “Fuck,” he mumbled, holding on to the palm plant for support.

Jinyoung set the stool in front of him and sat down. “If we’re going to do this, let’s have rules.” 

“You said in the car that you were going to turn him down,” said Younghyun, in tones of mild distress that suggested he had been given specific instructions from Wonpil to prevent this very scenario from occurring. 

“I will if he doesn’t agree to this,” Jinyoung replied. “Because the first rule is that I’m not cooking your ramen —”

“You can cook whatever the hell you want,” said Jaebeom calmly. 

“— I’m sorry I said it was soulless but it _is_ —” Jinyoung paused. “What?” 

“You can cook,” said Jaebeom again, “whatever the hell you want.” 

“Not to butt in here,” said Youngjae, very much butting in, “but isn’t Jaebeom-hyung’s restaurant a _ramen_ restaurant?”

“In three months we’ll be a nothing restaurant,” said Jaebeom. “That’s when my lease expires and we officially shut down.” 

“So you thought fuck it, might as well let Park Jinyoung cook in it since there’s no way he could screw this up even more?” asked Jinyoung bitterly. 

“No,” Jaebeom replied. “I thought I might as well go out with a bang, because the stuff you made last night was fireworks.” 

Jinyoung, who had opened his mouth to say something cutting and defensive, found himself suddenly with no possible response. 

“It was very delicious,” Younghyun added helpfully. 

“I thought about what you said about my ramen,” Jaebeom continued, while Jinyoung suppressed a flinch. “And look, I _could_ spend the next three months putting together the same bowl of ramen which you seem to think is soulless —”

“I’m sorry,” said Jinyoung in a small voice.

“No you’re not,” said Youngjae unhelpfully.

“— or I could, as you eloquently put it last night, ‘cook delicious shit people can get shitfaced to’,” finished Jaebeom, with a wry, charming little smile. “Cook the shit that made _us_ want to cook. Give the heirloom chickens something to squawk about.”

“The heirloom chickens are dead,” said Jinyoung. 

But there was something to what Jaebeom had said, echoing Jinyoung’s words back at him, that made Jinyoung think about those specific north star moments he’d had with food. The first taste of daube provençale he’d had as an impressionable youth stumbling into that tucked-away French bistro in Busan; the distinct char and sweetness of the charcoal-grilled eel at his grandmother’s restaurant — those precise moments that had made Jinyoung think, _oh. This is how I want to make other people feel_. That, balanced against the motion of it all, the methodical accomplishment of a series of precise tasks which pulled flavours and textures out from the realm of the imagination and into the tangible here and now, was what had sucked Jinyoung into restaurant life in the first place. 

The monomaniacal discipline, the exacting techniques, the obsessive and relentless competition, real or perceived: all of that had come after. 

“It was just a thought,” said Jaebeom, with a little shrug. “But I had to ask.” 

Jinyoung glanced over at Younghyun, who was giving them his best blankly neutral face while all the while frantically texting someone (probably Wonpil) on his phone, and then over at Youngjae, who sighed. 

“Don’t look at _me_ ,” he said. “I got out of _Le Ddongchim_ before the rest of you because I couldn’t stand all the weird restaurant bullshit.” 

“You can think about it,” said Jaebeom, uncrossing his legs and standing up from the wicker stool. “In the meantime, I’m off to soullessly prep my stock —”

“Fuck it,” said Jinyoung.

Everyone turned to look at him. 

Jaebeom frowned. “The stock specifically, or…?” 

“No,” said Jinyoung, “I mean fuck it, I’ll join you. It’s three fucking months, I’ve got nothing better to do.” 

“Oh,” said Jaebeom, and smiled that ridiculous friendship smile again, which did not, Jinyoung had to emphasise — did _not_ make Jinyoung feel even an ounce of additional goodwill towards Jaebeom. 

“Uh, Wonpilie’s calling me now, he probably wants to talk to you,” Younghyun told Jinyoung.

“But on one further condition,” said Jinyoung to Jaebeom. “My second rule.”

“Yeah?” said Jaebeom.

Jinyoung steeled himself, and said his next words in the sternest tone he could muster (which, if he were to think about it harder, was somewhat reminiscent of Wonpil’s no-nonsense voice). 

“We are _not_ falling back into whatever it was we were doing back in _Le Ddongchim_.”

There was a pause, in which someone (Youngjae) took a sharp intake of breath. 

“Sure,” said Jaebeom, holding out his hand. “Strictly professional.” 

“Okay,” said Jinyoung, taking Jaebeom’s hand and shaking it. “Let’s do this.”

“ _I’m sorry but I think it’s too late, Pilie_ ,” Younghyun hissed into his phone, over the sound of Wonpil tinnily demanding to know what on earth was going on.

\---

Jinyoung’s moment of resolute decision-making was followed, naturally, by a spiral of profound regret that culminated in him knocking on Wonpil’s bedroom door an hour before Jaebeom was due to give him a ride to the market. 

“This was your choice,” hissed Wonpil, his face illuminated by the single beam of light coming in through the gap of the open door. "I thought it wasn't a good idea but if _you_ felt you were ready—"

From the depths of Wonpil's duvet emerged a piteous groan. 

"Go back to sleep, hyung," said Wonpil tenderly, patting the lump that was Younghyun. 

Younghyun mumbled something like "spare me" and burrowed further into Wonpil's side. 

"I'm sorry Jinyoungie, but do you remember the talk we had about boundaries?" asked Wonpil.

"Yes," said Jinyoung mutinously, "which is why I knocked, and I haven't come in."

Wonpil opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Younghyun bursting out from his blanket cocoon to squint deliriously at Jinyoung.

"It is _FOUR,_ " Younghyun half-croaked, half-shouted, "in the FUCKING _morning_."

Having made this pronouncement, he subsided back into Wonpil's soothing arms. 

"Please don't make Jaebeom-hyung wait for you downstairs," said Wonpil, before lying back down on his pillow with an air of pointed finality. 

Chastened, Jinyoung shut the door. 

Jaebeom was, in fact, waiting for him by the time Jinyoung made it downstairs, leaning against the side of the same incredibly beat up ‘ILSAN TOMATO’ pickup truck he’d once used to transport the lot of them on an impromptu trip to Daecheon beach. He was, predictably, snoozing with his head cushioned against the thick collar of his massively padded jacket. 

Jinyoung stopped and shook his head, because if there was one thing that hadn’t changed about Im Jaebeom it was the fact that he could fall asleep anywhere, including but not limited to occasions such as: Jinyoung’s sister’s flute recital, the only movie they’d ever watched in theatres together ( _The Boss Baby_ , which Jinyoung had rediscovered the week before when he'd awoken from a nap to find Wonpil and Younghyun rewatching it on the television with the sound turned down), and midway through a conversation with Jackson about chicken breast (this one was understandable). 

“Still driving that thing?” Jinyoung said with no preamble, causing Jaebeom to startle awake. 

“Oh,” said Jaebeom, stifling a yawn. “Hey. Yeah. I borrowed it off my parents again.” 

“I figured,” said Jinyoung, going round to the passenger side and climbing in without waiting for Jaebeom to reply.

The inside of the cab looked much the same as years ago, if only a little worse for wear. Even the placement of the air freshener was exactly as Jinyoung remembered it. 

Yugyeom had been the one who’d started the beach thing, waxing lyrical to a confused Mark about the joys of octopus-hunting in mudflats. And then it had escalated, as these things always did, all of them entertaining a collective, growing fantasy about escaping _Le Ddongchim_ and riding off into the sunset to nakji heaven, which had culminated in Jaebeom showing up one day before service in his parents’ pickup truck.

“After this, we ride,” he’d said, to excited cheers from Yugyeom and nobody else. But when the time came, Jackson had rounded up the others — Yugyeom, vibrating out of his skin with anticipation; a sleepy Mark; Youngjae, muttering about how nobody would be able to see the fucking octopus in the dark; Bambam who’d mysteriously appeared — and they’d all bundled onto the back of the truck with an appropriate amount of alcohol (read: a lot). 

“You know this is crazy, right,” Jinyoung remembered telling Jaebeom as he’d clambered into the passenger seat. “We need to be back here at ten tomorrow morning.”

“Fuck it,” Jaebeom had declared, leaning in to give Jinyoung a magnificent peck on the nose. “Fuck it all.”

They’d then gotten lost, and Jinyoung and Jaebeom had yelled at each other, and then Youngjae had called Jinyoung on the phone from the back of the truck to shout about how they were cold, so that by the time they’d actually reached Boryeong (in the wee hours of the morning), everyone had been thoroughly cross with each other. 

This had swiftly been remedied by the liberal consumption of alcohol until dawn, followed by all of them descending upon an unsuspecting seafood place Bambam had mysteriously managed to locate, whereupon they had discovered that the local delicacy was not, as they’d assumed, octopus, but was in fact clam and shellfish. Not that anyone had complained, because it had been one of the top ten most delicious things they’d tasted.

With the benefit of hindsight and a fair bit of nostalgia, Jinyoung could say now that it had, on balance, been a pretty great jaunt. But at the time, all Jinyoung had been able to think about was getting back to _Le Ddongchim_ in time to start the morning’s prep; how that persistent worry had been an undercurrent beneath his efforts to simply enjoy their brief and strange liberty. 

And then, on their way back, they’d gotten stuck in traffic and Jinyoung and Jaebeom had fought — properly, this time — over the fuzzy sounds of morning radio, over the growing thrum of Jinyoung’s own panic. 

Now, too, Jaebeom had switched on the radio as he drove, seemingly unperturbed by Jinyoung’s extended silence, humming along to the advertisement jingles under his breath. 

Jinyoung glanced over at him, his calm, moustached face illuminated under the shifting beams of the streetlights, and thought about how they used to fight — Jinyoung feeling himself go chilly with anger, how he’d say cutting things he’d regret, or simply shut Jaebeom off completely; how, in the face of Jinyoung’s coldness Jaebeom would grow increasingly frustrated, the eruption of his rage only making Jinyoung withdraw even more. 

Yet it was an immutable fact that however bad it got, there was one thing they could always do, and that was to cook. Like at Bambam’s birthday when, on the night before the party, Jinyoung and Jaebeom had had a raging fight over something truly stupid — possibly about whether Bambam had been turning twenty in Korean or international years — to the point of Mark, Jackson and Youngjae imposing a twelve hour timeout in which they weren’t to talk to each other. 

And yet that awful tension had dissipated once they’d stepped into the strangely well-furnished kitchen of Bambam’s curiously centrally-located penthouse apartment and gotten to work on the food, the two of them working silently but largely harmoniously. 

“You guys are _so weird_ ,” Jackson had said, while furiously texting what had presumably been an all-clear message to probably one of several group chats dedicated to discussing Jinyoung and Jaebeom’s fraught progress as a not-couple. 

Jackson had later been proven wrong, unfortunately, when the fight had started up all over again during the course of the party, culminating in Wonpil comforting a furious Jinyoung inside Bambam’s beautiful spare toilet. (This had, apparently, also been the genesis of Younghyun and Youngjae’s subsequent collaboration, a perturbed Younghyun having been stuck making small talk with Youngjae on the balcony Jinyoung had stolen Wonpil from.) 

But the fact still remained: they would be fine if they were cooking.

And that was definitely all they were going to do now, Jinyoung told himself; him and this strange, calmer version of Jaebeom, who seemed to have left behind most of the bombast and exuberance he’d possessed during their time at _Le Ddongchim_. 

“We’re here,” said Jaebeom now, interrupting the restless simmer of Jinyoung’s thoughts.

Jinyoung blinked, and saw that they were, in fact, pulling into the parking lot at Noryangjin Fish Market. 

“How did you —” Jinyoung began, because he hadn’t realised Jaebeom was intending to purchase seafood. 

“When you were yelling at me about my ramen,” said Jaebeom, parking the pickup with practiced ease, “you said I should have tried adding clam broth to the chicken chintan stock.” 

“I don’t remember that,” said Jinyoung.

Jaebeom shrugged. “You were also repeatedly tasting the same bowl of stock with a series of different spoons, so.” 

“Right,” said Jinyoung. “Let’s get clams, then.”

“Sure,” said Jaebeom, unbuckling his seatbelt and moving to open the door.

“Also I thought of a third rule,” Jinyoung said, causing Jaebeom to pause. “Which is that you’re not fucking allowed to ask about what happened to me.” 

Jaebeom glanced at Jinyoung, not with surprise, but with a look of what could be understanding. 

It stung more than Jinyoung had expected; he glanced down at the dashboard, feeling his cheeks heat with angry embarrassment. 

“Sure,” said Jaebeom, after a pause. It felt for a moment like he was about to say something more. 

But when Jaebeom spoke again, all he said was, “Should we use the clams to make a bibimbap with chives?” 

Jinyoung looked up at Jaebeom, startled, and yet with prickling relief. He nodded, speechless for a second. 

“Fuck yes,” he said, when he finally found his voice again, “it’ll be delicious.”

\---

"Sooooo," said Jackson, calling two hours ahead from Sydney, "what's this I hear about you cooking again."

"What's this I hear about a sleep-inducing degustation menu," said Jinyoung.

"Lies," replied Jackson. He paused. "Okay, I mean technically it was probably jet lag."

"Technically it was probably Bambam being too fucking bored, you fuck," said Jinyoung.

"That's on him, I'm a man with a vision."

How was it, Jinyoung wondered, that Jackson had managed to cultivate an inexplicable Australian accent even when he was speaking _Korean_?

"Well?" asked Jackson. "How's it been?"

"How's what been?"

Jackson's eye roll was almost audible. "Cooking with Jaebeom-hyung, obviously."

"What the fuck kind of question is that?" 

"A question from a concerned friend, you idiot," Jackson replied. "You know, not everything in life requires the outsize level of aggression you bring to every situation." 

"I'm not aggressive," said Jinyoung aggressively. "Also I refuse to believe you've not seen any of Jaebeom-hyung's Ramen Nora instagram updates when you're out there every day posting awful bare-chested gym selfies."

Over the past two weeks, they'd served up a range of specials alongside Jaebeom's ramen, which Jaebeom had dutifully posted on his official account before service each day.

First, the clam bibimbap: clams from the second ramen broth mixed with a hefty quantity of chives and green onion and seasoned to just the right garlicky balance of umami-salty-sour-sweet, half of which was mixed with rice and, for extra crispy bits, toasted in small portions on a hot pan. 

This had been followed by a tale of two octopi, because Jinyoung had been torn between getting baby octopus and several very handsome grown ones.

"Get both," Jaebeom had said, and they'd served up the baby octopus chopped up and still wriggling with some ridiculously tasty dipping sauce Jaebeom had banged together, while Jinyoung had seared the boiled adult octopus legs in pork fat rendered from Jaebeom's chashu prep, before tossing them with finely chopped parsley, celery, and crisp cubes of fried potato in an impromptu octopus salad that was both citrusy light and deep with fat and flavour.

They'd also revisited the chicken bone graveyard of Jinyoung's drunken blackout, stir-frying the chopped up remains of the chickens Jaebeom had used for his chintan broth one night, and battering and double-frying them to crisp, liberally-spiced perfection another. The feet and combs they always prepped separately, braising the feet to collageny unctuousness, the combs grilled for a slight smoky char under the sweet and savoury seasoning. Chicken livers roasted one night with lemon sauce; stir fried the next with garlic stems and spring onion. Hearts skewered and cooked yakitori-style. Gizzards flambéed in rice wine.

"Yeah, yeah, mouthwatering shit, I know," said Jackson. "Christopher says Hyunjinnie won't shut up about it —"

"Who's Christopher?" Jinyoung asked. Hyunjin and the Poached crew, on the other hand, had become enthusiastic recipients of this nightly bounty. 

"He worked at _Le Ddongchim_ for two fucking years, you are actively the worst," said Jackson. "And I didn't mean the food, I meant how is it cooking with Jaebeom-hyung again?"

"He's got a ridiculous moustache now," said Jinyoung. He paused, and thought. "Did you mean _Burnt-All-The-Onions_ Bang Chan? Why the fuck are you calling him Christopher?"

"Because that's his name, which is something he _told us_ , you self-absorbed dick," Jackson replied. "And also the Grand Vizier's old news, I want to know if _you_ are okay."

"Why wouldn't I be?" Jinyoung countered.

By any measure, Jinyoung was in fact very okay, or at least marginally more okay than he'd been before he'd started splitting time between Ramen Nora and the couch in Wonpil's flat (which he was coming to realise was possibly also Younghyun's, because he'd noticed a few days ago that Younghyun may actually have permanently moved in at some point, judging by the mail he kept receiving).

"Oh I don't know, because you recently had a meltdown _in a fucking restaurant kitchen_ —"

"Which meltdown, you'll have to specify," Jinyoung interjected wryly.

"— and you're back in the kitchen again with none other than your — your words, not mine — dirtbag ex," finished Jackson. "Shouldn't I be concerned?"

"Well, thanks," said Jinyoung, less sarcastically than he'd originally intended. "It's been… fine. Jaebeom-hyung is — fine."

It baffled Jinyoung how different Jaebeom seemed at times. Back at _Le Ddongchim_ there had been moments where Jinyoung had bristled at how callous he could be — the way his quick anger and blunt rashness made him often oblivious to how it made others feel. (It was strange, and perhaps ironic, that after his departure Jinyoung had somehow become the angry one, but perhaps Jinyoung's cold rage and grudge-bearing had always been there.) 

The Jaebeom now felt cautious, and painfully observant; careful of Jinyoung's moods and accommodating where once he'd have just told Jinyoung 'that's a dumb idea' and moved on. Now he seemed to be always keeping a watchful eye on Jinyoung, picking up tasks as Jinyoung worked. Falling silent when Jinyoung was silent. Letting him choose what music played over the restaurant speakers.

It felt strangely like this was one long apology from him. It made Jinyoung feel, ironically, even more fragile than he'd felt that evening he'd walked out of that kitchen, riding back to Wonpil and Younghyun's apartment in the back of Younghyun's car, with Wonpil glancing ashen-faced at Jinyoung through the rear view mirror. 

"I'm fine," Jinyoung had said, then, "I just need to sleep for a couple of days and I'll be ok."

And he'd believed that himself, even as the days had slipped into weeks, and the entire flat had crept around the edges of his blank despair. Wonpil had checked in on him, and Younghyun had tried to help by alternately producing pamphlets and making Jinyoung carbonara and paninis ("for a video," he'd said, unaware that Jinyoung had watched the pasta and panini episodes), out of genuine sympathy towards Jinyoung's situation in general.

With Jaebeom, it felt like he'd taken one look at Jinyoung and _known_. That specific, raging frustration; the bitter disappointment; the cavernous futility of all the grinding competition, showmanship for the sake of it. 

And when he'd said Jinyoung could cook whatever the hell he wanted, he'd meant it. Regardless of the desperate circumstances leading to him asking Jinyoung to join him, it had still been an unexpected vote of confidence from the unlikeliest of places.

"Fine," said Jackson now, interrupting Jinyoung's long silence. "Tell me nothing."

"Yeah, well, sorry to waste your time," said Jinyoung. 

"Calling a friend isn't a waste of time, you dick," said Jackson. "Say hi to Wonpilie for me. Oh, and fucking move out and stop cockblocking him and Younghyun."

"Is this a good time to tell you that you're on speakerphone," said Jinyoung.

"Hi, Jackson," said Wonpil, who had been patiently waiting for the grilled cheese sandwiches Jinyoung had been in the middle of preparing for them.

"Hear, hear," said Younghyun under his breath, because he had also been sitting there.

"HEYYYYYYY," bellowed Jackson. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes, loud and clear," said Wonpil.

"Just kick that fucker out, Wonpilie!" Jackson shouted. "You and Younghyunie-hyung deserve the privacy and freedom to get as profoundly nasty as you want, whenever and wherever you fucking want to —"

"Bye, fuck off, bye," said Jinyoung, hanging up. 

He looked over at Wonpil and Younghyun; Wonpil had gone very pink, while Younghyun let out an embarrassed laugh of mild vindication. 

And at the far end of the bench was Dowoon. He was pressing his hands over his ears, his mouth fallen open in a silent scream.

"Ah," said Jinyoung. "I guess I should get round to moving back."

\---

“Took you long enough to come out here,” said Mark. 

It was a minor wonder, thought Jinyoung, how Mark could still manage to look magazine-ready in his white coveralls and holding a chicken. And yet he did, with his gentle tan from farm work making him look sun-kissed as opposed to blotchy and terrible, and his hair, tied up in its makeshift bandana, giving him a rakish air. Inexplicable. The chicken, confidently restrained in Mark’s fingers (Jinyoung, like many others, had watched the instagram live in which Mark had beautifully demonstrated the ‘perfect technique for holding a chicken’), was resting jauntily on his forearm, its feathery backside pointed menacingly in Jinyoung’s direction as it calmly released a chickeny shriek into the crook of Mark’s elbow.

“I hadn’t planned to,” said Jinyoung. “Jaebeom-hyung said he’d help me move my stuff back to my apartment if I ‘didn’t mind the detour’.” 

Jaebeom, who was now meditatively gazing at several of the chickens while Yugyeom squawked excitedly at him about some avian news, had failed to mention that the detour would involve a two-hour drive to Jeolla province — and that was just one way. But perhaps Jinyoung had also been to blame, having fallen asleep in the passenger seat the moment he’d climbed in and only waking up at the rest stop an hour and a half later to Jaebeom wafting a bonito flake-and-gochujang-covered octopus skewer under his nose. 

“I _told you_ we were going to check on the chickens,” Jaebeom called, while he expertly picked up a magnificent-looking rooster. “And you said yes!”

“I thought you meant the ones already in the _restaurant walk-in_ ,” Jinyoung called back, too full on halfway-decent rest stop snacks (there had been roasted potatoes) to be properly angry. 

Also, it occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Mark and Yugyeom since Bambam’s most recent birthday, when the two of them had shown up to the party with a box of curiously rubbery fried chicken that everyone had been relieved to learn, an hour into dinner, had not in fact been from Mark’s farm. Jinyoung, flat out exhausted from the rest of his six days in the kitchen, had shown up with a raw head of lettuce and two red onions which he’d made vague promises to turn into a salad, but had ended up sitting ornamentally, for the rest of the night, atop a misshapen plate/bowl (a harbinger of Bambam’s subsequent pottery phase).

“You look well,” said Mark, smiling his mysterious, beautiful Mark smile, the one that either signified that he was harbouring some deep insight, or that he hadn’t been paying attention; it was hard to tell.

“What are you talking about,” said Jinyoung, “I look like shit because I’ve been sleeping like shit.” 

“You do look like shit,” agreed Mark, “but of a better, more vibrant quality than before.” 

“Okay Mark,” Jinyoung sighed. “Just show me the fucking birds.” 

Half an hour in, it remained somewhat unclear what Jaebeom intended to do by “checking on” the chickens, apart from joyously carrying them from place to place while Yugyeom clucked after him, Mark’s custom-selected smooth jazz playlist playing over their lunchtime free graze. 

Jinyoung, in the meantime, had trudged after Mark in a personal tour of the farm, which led to the discovery of more chickens (to nobody’s surprise). 

“We wouldn’t have this much support if Jaebeom hadn’t gotten the word out first,” said Mark, while a luxuriantly feathered beast of a bird circled his heels with great pomp. “He buys our birds, and then so did Poached, and then we got other enquiries…” 

“Well it’s good you have other customers, because Ramen Nora seems to be on its last legs,” Jinyoung replied.

“I think we should reflect on the kinds of stories we are telling ourselves,” said Mark ethereally, in what was either residual management-course speak from his past life, or from the life-changing Eat Pray Love-esque book that had apparently precipitated Mark’s pivot to poultry. 

“That’s the story,” said Jinyoung. “Jaebeom-hyung literally said he’s shutting Ramen Nora down.” 

“Hmm,” said Mark with a slight frown. It was hard to tell if his displeasure was caused by Jinyoung’s reluctance to reexamine his story, or the possibility that Jaebeom had failed to communicate the fact that he would soon no longer be paying exorbitant prices for jazz-agnostic chickens. 

“I’ve told him several times,” said Jaebeom later, when they’d started their journey back to Seoul. “I’ve also told him that it’s not ‘negative self-talk’ to say that I’m shuttering my business because I’ve run out of money, but…” 

He paused, and shrugged.

“Well,” said Jinyoung. “Maybe Seoul just isn’t ready for Kyoto-style new school ramen.”

“Ha,” Jaebeom replied, “you don’t have to try to be nice about it.” 

“I’m not trying,” said Jinyoung. “That’s just how it is, isn’t it? Bad luck, bad timing...”

For every Poached, there were at least half a dozen other interesting, decent restaurants that never made it past their first year. At least Jaebeom was doing the prudent thing in cutting his losses instead of throwing good money after bad by trying to stay afloat for longer. 

“Bad ramen?” Jaebeom added, with a wry smile.

“I didn’t say it was bad, I said it was disappointing,” said Jinyoung, but he was beginning to recognise that it didn’t really matter what exactly he’d said. 

“The ramen thing was sort of… my way out, I suppose,” said Jaebeom. “Of the fuckery of _Le Ddongchim_ , all that fancy restaurant bullshit.” He shrugged. “And then I went and did it, and realised that there’s fuckery everywhere.”

He paused for a moment, which Jinyoung spent wondering what the fuck he was supposed to say that wouldn’t feature, as Jackson put it, an outsize level of aggression. 

Then Jaebeom spoke again. “I honestly think I got spooked, in Japan. Just by how different… and also how similar it was to being in _Le Ddongchim_. I think I’d imagined it to be this whole other thing in my mind and when I realised the impossibleness of it, it was too late to turn back.”

“So you stuck it out through sheer stubbornness,” said Jinyoung. 

“Pretty much,” said Jaebeom. “And then I got back and it was like, what the fuck else was I supposed to do besides try to prove that the past three years hadn’t been a colossally stupid call?” He shook his head. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “My biggest fuckup was letting my parents invest.”

Jinyoung glanced over at Jaebeom and realised, for the first time, that so much of what he’d thought had been Jaebeom’s blithe confidence may, in fact, have just been stubborn fear. That maybe in Jinyoung’s own envy and admiration of Jaebeom’s skill, he’d missed the fact that Jaebeom’s recklessness and bombast had been his way of sublimating the terror of being in the kitchen and being made to prove themselves, day after day. 

That perhaps when he’d tasted Jaebeom’s sad ramen, part of him had recognised in it his own lostness, from those months and years where everything he did had stopped making sense. 

“Maybe,” said Jinyoung, into the profoundly uncomfortable silence, “you should re-examine the stories you’re telling yourself.”

Jaebeom barked a surprised laugh. “Maybe you should fuck right off,” he said, but they were glancing at each other in mutual conspiracy at this reference to the sheer weirdness of Mark’s chicken experience. “Also you’re nowhere as good-looking as Mark to be able to get away with that.”

“I’m deeply offended,” said Jinyoung, unable to keep the mirth from his voice.

“Spoken like someone who wasn’t physically present when Mark did that weird photoshoot for either a farmer’s quarterly or an underground fashion zine,” Jaebeom replied, with a haunted look. 

“I _saw_ ,” said Jinyoung, recalling the multi-panel reveal on the chicken farm’s official Instagram account. There had been a lot of black paint and toplessness, and also chickens, glaring imperiously beneath Mark’s breathtaking jawline. It had been both beautiful and terrifying. 

He paused. “Did you and Mark ever...”

Jaebeom boggled at Jinyoung for a moment, then let out an incredulous laugh. “Fuck, no,” he said, still laughing. “Did you think I just slept with _everyone_ at _Le Ddongchim_?”

“Didn’t you?” Jinyoung asked, and regretted it the moment he said it. 

Jaebeom’s grin abruptly vanished, and he frowned. 

“I’m sorry,” said Jinyoung quickly. “That was out of line. I guess Jackson said something once, and I assumed —”

“There were a couple of flings, I’m not going to lie,” said Jaebeom. “But not after I met you.”

It was at this point that Jinyoung became painfully aware of the weird thing his chest was doing. 

“So we weren’t a fling, then,” said Jinyoung stupidly. 

“Was that what you thought it was?” asked Jaebeom. 

“What was I supposed to think when you fucked off to Japan without telling me?” snapped Jinyoung. 

Jaebeom opened his mouth, then shut it. “Look, I fucked up,” he said after a moment. “I was too fucking scared about what you’d say, and —”

“You were _scared_?” Jinyoung repeated, incredulous.

“Look, you’re very fucking scary when you want to be, all right?” said Jaebeom. “And part of me thought — very stupidly, I realise — that maybe I should prove myself first.” 

“Well,” said Jinyoung, “you certainly proved yourself to be a magnificent ghosting douchebag.” 

“Yeah, well,” Jaebeom mumbled. “Add that to the list.” 

“Fuck you,” said Jinyoung, too exhausted to muster any real rage. “Honestly, fuck you.”

“I deserve it,” said Jaebeom. “I’m sorry. And you weren’t a fling, and I’m sorry if I gave the impression that it was one.”

And it both was and wasn’t the catharsis he’d expected every time he’d imagined confronting Jaebeom about this. In his mind he’d always expected to be angrier, to be yelling; for Jaebeom to yell back. Faced now with Jaebeom’s straightforward apology, Jinyoung felt deflated, like all the fury he’d been holding had now dissipated into a strange sort of sadness at their younger selves. 

“You weren’t a fling either,” said Jinyoung, and he wasn’t prepared for the way Jaebeom looked at him — with that mix of relief and gladness that made his stomach dip.

“Now fuck off and let me nap,” Jinyoung added, and shut his eyes so he wouldn’t need to look at Jaebeom any more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> huge huge thanks to forochel as always for cheering me on and the wondrous comments when this part was being written!!!! 
> 
> and also THANK YOU to everyone who commented lovely things on chapter one and left kudos, your kind words are greatly treasured and rest assured they are free-range grazing to smooth jazz as i type this <333
> 
> feel free to find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bysine2), I promise pictures of yoon dowoon's face and sometimes I deliver.


End file.
